Cherry Road School was once part of
farmland owned by Willis Parsons and other local farmers. During the 1920’s,
Willis’s daughter, Marion Parsons, at the urging of the then small farming
community, launched what is today Cherry Road School in an old chicken coop
adjacent to her father’s cherry orchard.

Here
is the story:

Children who lived in the farming
community known today as Westvale during the mid to late 1800s and into the
early 1900s, attended a one-room schoolhouse on Terry Road. In the late 1800s,
Marion Parsons and her sisters, Martha and Grace, were enrolled in the Terry
Road School (Geddes School District I). Others who attended at this time
included their cousins Guy and Herbert Parsons, George Jerome, and other local
farm children, Mable and Roy Vinton, Will and Hazel Andrews, and Louise Hubbell.
This school was originally built in 1847. It had no running water, and a box
stove kept the children warm in the wintertime. There was an outhouse in the
back of the school. When it was time for class to begin, the teacher rang a
large brass bell. (Hill & Vale, January, 1974) The land for the Terry
Road School had been donated by the Guy Parsons family.

When Marion graduated from Terry Road School, she went on
to study at Cortland State Teachers College. When she returned home to the
Parsons Farm—the farmhouse still sits today on the corner of West Genesee Street
and Parsons Drive—the farm community was in need of a new teacher and a new
school. Marion enlisted the help of the women picking fruit in her father’s
cherry orchard to help her clean up the chicken coop that would serve as a
temporary school. The brass bell from the old school came with her, and for many
years, the bell was used to summon students to school and back to their desks
after recess. The bell resides today at Cherry Road School in Principal Sarah
VanLiew’s office.

As time passed, the number of
children who attended the school grew, and in 1927, the first building that is
part of Cherry Road School today, was completed. In 1932, an auditorium and gym
were added on. To celebrate, a community musical program was sponsored by the
Parent-Teachers’ Association. The community orchestra played under the direction
of Warren Rockwell; a “women’s double trio” sang with Mrs. Margaret Ryder Kanar.
They were accompanied by Mrs. Gladys E. Bush. Mr. Rockwell played several violin
solos with Miss Mary S. Nasteff accompanying him. (Syracuse Herald Journal,
March 2, 1932)

But times were changing, the
Industrial Age emerging, and as the city of Syracuse grew and sprawled,
engulfing the surrounding farmland, the needs of the Cherry Road School students
began to change too. In 1938, the school graduated its last farmer.

From then on, Cherry Road students
went on to become lawyers and doctors and professors. But they never forgot Miss
Parsons, and every year at Christmas time, or on her birthday, until her death
in 1972, she received many cards and letters from former students. They would
tell her what an important role she and Cherry Road School had played in their
lives. By the example she set, and through the impact she had on so many lives,
Marion taught others what it meant to be a teacher.

But there is more to the
story than one woman and the school. The same people who remembered Miss Parsons
fondly remembered something special about the community around the school. Those
memories are part of a rich heritage that will be collected and shared through
the Cherry Road School Project.One hundred years ago, there were many farms in
the area. Ned Jerome and Henry Jerome were the original co-owners of the last working farm, Jerome Dairy. Many will remember Van Jerome, Jim Jerome (James S.) and Clayton Burritt, their delivery vehicles a familiar sight as they delivered fresh milk every day to the residents of Westvale. In the olden days, instead of the truck, they peddled milk with a horse and wagon and ladled out milk to customers from a milk can. Later they used a Packard auto, before they got the milk trucks. For many years, the people of Westvale enjoyed the daily convenience of the glass jars of fresh milk left right in their kitchens or pantries through the two-sided milk doors that many of us probably took for granted.

Many of these families and many of
the students who attended Cherry Road School, and whose grandparents sat on the
hard wooden benches at Terry Road School, still reside today in the Westvale
community. Though the nature and the industry of the area has changed from the
olden days, many of the people remain rooted in the community. Many remember
Miss Parsons fondly, many remember the sound of the brass bell. To them, that
clanging sound means more than the start of class. It calls to mind community.

The Cherry Road School project will
culminate in a book written by Willis Parsons’ great granddaughter, Nancy "Camille" Cole,
with the help of her cousin, Jim Jerome, and other Parsons cousins who still
live in the area, and the support of the Geddes Historical Society. We hope you
will contribute your memories of the school, the community, and Miss Parsons. We
have provided a link to a Cherry Road School project blog where you can post
comments and memories. If you would like to contact someone in person, send an email to: